Proper Orientation Reduces Turnover

"We want to reduce our turnover. What is entailed in a professional indoctrination/training program. Also, should we continue in-line training or consider using a separate training room?" A.M., Malaysia

Personalities and cultures of companies differ, therefore without first studying your company it would be presumptuous for me to tell you exactly what you need. However, because excessive turnover in the early, critical weeks, is usually due to undertrained supervision and poor or non-existent orientation and/or training programs my answer should help you.

Let’s review proper orientation and training for a moment. All new employees (experienced or not) should go through a process which will allow them to rapidly adopt to your company’s culture while acquiring the knowledge, skills, attitudes and feeling of belonging they’ll need. Orientation is the guided plan that helps adjust new employees to their company, their jobs and their fellow workers. The faster the adjustment, the less the turnover.

The formula for retention is; the retention rate of productive, motivated trainees will increase in direct proportion to training the trainees in everything they need to know plus giving them the attention they require – in order to succeed. New employees need to know beforehand just how your training program works, what are the steps involved, what they will learn and be expected to retain when each step is mastered and how long it should take them to get from where they are to where the have to be and what they can expect from your company once they get there.

Orientation programs begin with the development of a specific, written list of everything (and I mean everything) new employees need to know. Then, the list is organized into training week curriculums, with the most important information taught in the early weeks. For example, explaining to trainees how they get paid takes a priority over showing them the location of the bulletin boards.

Your training program has more of a chance of success if you train a trainer to train and drop your present practice of allowing your line supervisors to do the training. Then, once orientation lists are developed into the correct chronological sequence the trainers need to be trained to use it and try it out with new trainees – to see if it produces the desired effect. If it doesn’t, tweak it until it does. Careful adherence to each of the detailed procedures is essential if rapid development of personnel is desired.

By tailoring a checklist to your own special needs, applicants can be developed into high quality performers, working at acceptable levels of efficiency in a shorter time. Furthermore, when a properly developed orientation procedure is coupled to a systematic training program (such as our "ASSETT^© Machine Operator Training Program") and become part of your daily routine, it will practically eliminate turnover.

Once the applicant is hired, this written checklist follows the new employee through every step of their training process and record their progress – what that trainee has been shown and what still needs to be taught. When all the boxes on the list have been checked off it should indicate that the trainee has been fully oriented into the company and has successfully become part of your industrial family. Regardless of how you design your checklist, Figure1 gives 15 considerations no training program should be without . . .

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